EU rules publishers cannot stop you reselling your downloaded games

[maxy]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-03-eu-rules-publishers-cannot-stop-you-reselling-your-downloaded-games

http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-07/cp120094en.pdf

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that publishers cannot stop you from reselling your downloaded games.

More specifically: "An author of software cannot oppose the resale of his 'used' licences allowing the use of his programs downloaded from the internet."

The Court said the exclusive right of distribution of a copy of a computer program covered by the license is "exhausted on its first sale".

The ruling means that gamers in European Union member states are free to sell their downloaded games, whether they're from Steam, Origin or another digital platform - no matter what End User License Agreement has been signed.

The ruling continues: "Therefore, even if the licence agreement prohibits a further transfer, the rightholder can no longer oppose the resale of that copy."

The ruling suggests that if you've bought a license for a game off your mate, you're within your rights to download it from the publisher's website. "Therefore the new acquirer of the user licence, such as a customer of UsedSoft, may, as a lawful acquirer of the corrected and updated copy of the computer program concerned, download that copy from the copyright holder's website," the Court said.

Whether Valve and EA will make changes to their websites to reflect the ruling remains to be seen.

The ruling in more depth:

"Where the copyright holder makes available to his customer a copy - tangible or intangible - and at the same time concludes, in return form payment of a fee, a licence agreement granting the customer the right to use that copy for an unlimited period, that rightholder sells the copy to the customer and thus exhausts his exclusive distribution right. Such a transaction involves a transfer of the right of ownership of the copy. Therefore, even if the licence prohibits a further transfer, the rightholder can no longer oppose the resale of that copy."

There is one condition, however. If you resell a license to a game you have to make your copy "unusable at the time of resale". Now you will do that, won't you?

"If he continued to use it," the Court explained, "he would infringe the copyright holder's exclusive right of reproduction of his computer program. In contrast to the exclusive right of distribution, the exclusive right of reproduction is not exhausted by the first sale."

hmmm

[Sho Nuff]

UH OH

[maxy]

I'm not sure if anything will come out of this but i'm glad that somebody started poking around software licence stuff.

[Joe Molotov]

BRB, selling all my Steam games.

[Great Rumbler]

Filthy librul-Euros trying take away people's* rights!

spoiler (click to show/hide)

*"Corporations are people, my friend!"

[close]

[Howard Alan Treesong]

you can now list your Diablo III account on the RMTAH. INCEPTION

[archie4208]

So when can I trade in all these awful Steam games I bought for more hats? 

[AdmiralViscen]

Not prohibiting, and making allowances for, are different things, no?

[Joe Molotov]

Not prohibiting, and making allowances for, are different things, no?

Well, it does say...

"Therefore the new acquirer of the user licence, such as a customer of UsedSoft, may, as a lawful acquirer of the corrected and updated copy of the computer program concerned, download that copy from the copyright holder's website," the Court said.

Which would seem to imply that you could sell a Steam game to someone else, and Steam would be required to let that person download the game from Steam, but I'll believe it when I see it. But people in the EU (in accordance with EU laws) have been able to force Steam to give them refunds for games even though Steam says they don't won't, so we'll see.

If it does happen, it's going to be hilarious the first time someone gets their account hacked and all their games sold.

[Fifstar]

We'll see what that outcome of all that will be. Some poeple in the GAF thread mentioned something along the lines that in the licensing agreement of steam the right to use the copy is NOT unlimited like it is in the wording of this ruling. Although if this would be true, there's a chance that the EU court would rule that the license agreement of steam is invalid. On the other hand, I'm also not sure if this means that Valve (or any other distributor) has to actually develop a way that you can actually sell a game, because right to there is no way to detach a game license from an account, as the case of Oracle was about keys as I understand it.

In germany our highest court two years ago that explictly granted Valve the right to deny selling of licenses on steam, but this decision by the EU court would overrule that. But still, I believe when I see it. We have the right by law to make up to 7 physical copies of any medium, game, music, dvd etc. (and even are allowed to share the copies with friends) but are explicitly not allowed to crack a copy protection which obviously means that the right to make a copy is absolutly useless, at least in regard to games.

[Human Snorenado]

Fortunately here in the US, our companies own our courts so we won't have to worry about this sort of crazy talk

[Bebpo]

Nothing is going to happen with this.

If it did, the game industry would end.  Just like that.  Why ever buy anything from a company when you can buy a 100% pristine version for cheaper 2nd hand.